Max Ernst

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Everything posted by Max Ernst

  1. I Had A Random Thought...

    Last week I had a Coke for the first time in three years and it was awful. Very heavy and my teeth hurt. I wasn't a big junk food guy, but I stopped having soft drink over dinner, snacking on processed foods, and having milk in my coffee. I dropped ten kilograms pretty quickly. It sounds like I stopped having fun, but really, the stuff I eat now is a lot tastier and I feel a lot better during the day.
  2. Books, books, books...

    Just about finished Diane Ackerman's The Human Age, which covers a lot of really important issues but smothers them with optimism and poorly chosen similes. She seems self conscious she won't get the sense of wonder through to the reader, so each aspect about history and future of the planet is propped by a lot of picture words that don't quite fit. She does a neat job of showing what a dire situation we are in as a planet, and how the natural world is basically screwed. She tries to point at technology as being the answer to all of our problems, but she is unconvincing, as she doesn't address fundamental political, economic and social issues that will hinder their success. Her use of the royal "we" is very loose, which is also very annoying. Next up on the Max Ernst book club: I'm about to read Calvino's Invisible Cities, and after Gravity's Rainbow, it's nice to not be reading a tome.
  3. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    Took me five years, but I finally found this album in high quality:
  4. Books, books, books...

    When I read Gravity's Rainbow, I am reading it in one of the three ways: Following the plot, enjoying the banter, jokes, and situations. Moved by beautiful, very human moments (Pokler at the camp, the dream about Tantivy, Pointsman and Mexico walking across the beach talking about cause and effect) Confusion at what is happening, what is metaphorical, the rocket specifics, which character is which and what Pynchon is trying to get at with some of his more abstract asides)
  5. Broken Age - Double Fine Adventure!

    Pretty much!
  6. Books, books, books...

    Ayo I am about to finish Gravity's Rainbow (finally, it's been real), and I think I will read Charles Portis next. Probably Masters of Atlantis. Also, that guilty feeling you get when you are enjoying are book but secretly excited to be done with it so you can read something new: I have that feeling a lot.
  7. Movie/TV recommendations

    Yeah, it is such an uncompromising film. It feels like the Director had a really strong vision of what he wanted to show, and didn't let things such as audience reaction, traditional narrative and general cohesion get in the way. The film is happy to be weird and also to send a camera into someone's cervix, and I love it for that. Just absolutely uncompromising. I'm going to watch Wet Hot American summer because I have a hankering to see some kids being thrown out of a van.
  8. Quitter's Club: Don't be ashamed to quit the game.

    So did I! It isn't very good and the story is so corny. I didn't like that the big part of the game was to move to nodes already placed on the map, removing a big sense of discovery. It might be possible to turn that off, but it felt like a fundamental part of the game to me.
  9. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    Couldn't care less about Run The Jewels (Killer Mike and El-P don't play to each other's strengths and are making thoroughly empty music), but Young Thug is so so great. He is such a weird talent and his raps are all over the shop but still manages to cling to the beat. His lines are silly but they twist in your head for days after you listen to them. He has more personality and life in his raps that anyone else out there. Old English is great and it survives Fergs bullshit verse.
  10. Movie/TV recommendations

    A good movie is Enter the Void, even if the first scene makes me nauseous. You should watch it because for all its weird flaws, it is one of the most original viewing experiences you can have.
  11. Books, books, books...

    I'm halfway through Gravity's Rainbow and it is super great but I miss the helpless struggle of Lot 49. Also, I am skipping the songs because I am a cretin.
  12. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    The new Shellac album is out but it just inspired me to listen to Big Black a bunch so sorry Steve Albini
  13. Books, books, books...

    Hi book thread. I finished The Recognitions recently and I think it may be the best book I have ever read. Instead of moving straight on to another book, I just read analysis and essays on the novel because I love it so much and wanted to live in it as long as I could. It is nearly a thousand pages, so the fact I finished it and was still unsatisfied is a testament to how good it is. Also, it reminds me of Annie Hall in that it is deeply in love with literature but it is very scathing of the intelligentsia. I am also reading Dead Souls and that book is very funny and not nearly the dark exploration of the soul I was expecting.
  14. Movie/TV recommendations

    Also, Parks and Rec did a good thing by casting John Glazer. Amazing man.
  15. Books, books, books...

    If you liked True Grit you should Gringo by the same author because Charles Portis is a hilarious and insightful author.
  16. Movie/TV recommendations

    Parks and Recreation struggled when they introduced Adam Scott and Rob Lowe. Lowe was never a good fit for the show (he had one joke, essentially), and Scott's character is wildly inconsistent. They are throwing plots all over the shop and seeing what sticks. It is a show spinning its wheels. It still has the ability to be very funny, so if you can ignore the plot, it is still a show worth watching.
  17. Books, books, books...

    I've read Crying of Lot 49 three times and it was better every time. It's just one of those books.
  18. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    Just bought this. Sounds incredible.
  19. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    Tim Hecker makes incredible music. He and Oneohtrix Point Never are taking music to really interesting places. It's a bummer that their collaboration record didn't live up to my otherworldly expectations. I just purchased my first major high fi system, as an upgrade to a large Logitech computer speakers unit. Serious night and day stuff. Running a high quality vinyl (Ween's The Mollusk is always my test record) through the new turntable and through the new equipment for the first time seriously blew my mind. I already had high quality headphones, but this took them somewhere else. I've been playing a lot of Bjork to celebrate, because her records sound amazing.
  20. Recommend a book for someone. (top 10s)

    I've read three volumes of Alice Munro, Hateship, Runaway, and Friends of My Youth. All of her stories hit the same themes: loveless marriages, arrogant men treating women like furniture, fleeting infidelity, and the difficulties in leaving your home town and trying to return to it, but she always has something interesting to say about them. Her work is simply incredible. I'll add Serena to my reading list, once I finish my project to read every nobel prize winner. So, I guess I will read it in 10 years.
  21. Recommend a book for someone. (top 10s)

    It is hard to rank a book over another. To say that Hemingway is a better author than Morrison (or, probably, vice versa) doesn't really work as a sentiment, because each author producer such complex work that comparison, and in turn, claiming one work is superior, is a very difficult task. However, here are ten books I have read more than twice because they are just that good, not to mention reward multiple readings: Toni Morrison - Sula Herman Mellville - Moby Dick William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury W. Somerset Maugham - Cakes and Ale Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49 JMG Le Clezio - The Flood Albert Camus - The Stranger Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises Alice Munro - Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage I recommend you read Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers, because everyone should read it.
  22. Books, books, books...

    Going through my reading list of Nobel Prize winners, I'm stalling on Mo Yan's Life and Death are Wearing Me Out. This book is all over the shop and the tone of voice falls in and out of character. I'm liking it, but it can be hard to hang on. Mo Yan Mo Problems.
  23. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    I'm not a huge fan of the boss, but I checked this record out for some reason. Man, the production on this leaves no rough edges. There is no personality in any of these recordings. That song about the mob boss is goddamn embarrassing, lyrically and musically. Oof. Also, Tom Morello is an inventive guitarist but an absolutely uninteresting musician to listen to.
  24. Books, books, books...

    I'm reading Mo Yan's Life and Death are Wearing Me Out, which is a great title for a weird book. Dude pleads his way out of hell to be reborn as a donkey, and he watches the effects of Mao's agricultural reforms from the perspective of an animal. It's very cool, and does some interesting things with the historical setting and narration, but can verge on confusing as it switches between voices, perspectives and characters on a whim.
  25. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    This song takes an ambient track and turns it into a hip hop beat. And it isn't terrible! Weird. Non rap stuff: I heard a cover of this recently. It was really bad and sounded like an American Idol audition piece. I had to hear the original to cleanse my palette. Now you, too, can join in on the fun and enjoy the best song about unrequited love ever written. "Lighting never strikes any more". Jesus.